Research On C-E Translation Of “?” In A Dream Of Red Mansions From The Perspective Of Indeterminacy Of Translation

“?”(a Chinese character meaning “come” in most context), a directional verb in A Dream in Red Mansions, was analyzed and catalogued through the combination of the indeterminacy of translation theory and C-E(Chinese to English) practices, along with C-E Parallel Corpus, aiming to better exp ? n what causes the indeterminacy and its relations with certainty. This thesis proposes that translation is defined by the certainty, and should encompass indeterminacy caused by translator's re-interpretation within a reasonable range as well, providing reasonable explanation of the descriptive and conventional factors in translation process.The idea of indeterminacy of translation came from Quine's thought experiment of radical translation whose purpose, presumptions and behaviorism will be critically clarified in order to elaborate the origins of indeterminacy. The thought experiment of radical translation, grounded on behaviorism, holism, pragmatism and neo-empiricism, making the indeterminacy reasonable and scientific, complemented the conventional theory of meaning fact and paved a theoretical way for connecting indeterminacy and translation.Meanwhile, this thesis points out that further refinement of indeterminacy of translation is demanded. Davidson's truth condition theory of meaning is complementary enough to better improve the Quine's theory, indicating the connections between indeterminacy of translation and that of interpretation. The possibility of interpretation and translation makes everything translatable.The indeterminacy at lexical and cultural level contributes to the indeterminacy of translating “?”(a directional verb in A Dream in Red Mansions). The difference of Chinese characters and English words and the vocabulary itself being uncertain are attributed to the lexical indeterminacy; and the perspective of feudalism taken by the author to the cultural one. The relation between certainty and indeterminacy of translation can be described as fidelity-abuse, invariability-variability and whole-part, all put together leads to the translation featuring disobedience and focusing more on meaning and entirety rather than formation and smaller parts. Whatever the circumstance is, translation, in which a reasonable amount of indeterminacy is re-interpreted by translators, should be rooted firmly on certainty. The re-interpretations of translations reveal the value of different versions.